Cloud computing and social networks are two of the more powerful movements in the web 2.0 space. So the potential of social media and the cloud integrating is compelling to say the least. Salesforce.com recently rolled out the Service Cloud, a customer service application that tries to capture the crowdsourced pools of knowledge floating across the internet from sites like Google, Facebook and Amazon, and then uses this information to better equip commercial customer service operations with useful knowledge. Salesforce has now connected Twitter to the Service Cloud, allowing customer service reps using the SaaS to access tweets from more than 8 million Twitter users.
Salesforce’s CRM for Twitter allows enterprises to search for tweets about their companies, products and brands. Here’s how it works. First, Salesforce CRM searches within the Service Cloud for any tweets that are relevant to a company. Then, the company can capture and monitor the conversation, creating a database in the Service Cloud that keeps track of all subsequent conversations about the company. The Service Cloud also allows enterprises to tap into company-wide online communities, creates connections to existing social networks and the blogosphere, provides SEO tools, shares the social network knowledge with business partners, and integrates customer service operations into the cloud.
The Service Cloud seems like a useful tool to capture and then sort conversations about a particular enterprise. But what’s fascinating is how businesses want to tap into the dialogue of what’s happening on social networks, like Facebook and Twitter. Social networks are becoming much more than an online gathering of friends; Facebook and Twitter are becoming destinations for ideation, e-commerce and marketing. Its of no surprise that companies want an easy and simple way to capture all of the information that is relevant to their businesses and then leverage this knowledge to improve customer service. As we’ve said earlier, Salesforce has consistently managed to provide innovative, desirable technology platforms for enterprises to merge their business operation with the web 2.0 world.
Smart move. integratio of twitter and other rel time communication tools into business tools and networks will be one of the next big waves.
Definitely agree, I think twitter is a huge integration platform. We are definitely using it at Skedet to keep people informed to what is happening on the site. Jumping on the social networks is very important is this day and age.
A knowledgeable and informative post. I really loved this information. I agree with a point that social networking is much more than a friends’ gathering place it has become a big business industry. Today nearly all bloggers are using Twitter and other social networks. I myself am a blogger and I am familiar with the importance of social network in online business. It is not far when social network becomes the biggest industry online.
Mohammad Afaq
Free Website Traffic
I still don’t understand what salesforce does
This is a very cool idea.
Mike, they sell CRM software in SaaS form.
Obviously for small business.
It’s definitely not for only small business.
Get real.
Mike, you may remember Human Click?
humanclick.com/
The old Israeli company that use to be big in online chat before flash rolled around and made it easy and the java applets got phased out.
Well salesforce is like Human click except they added support tickets, analytics and other customer management tools and mobile stuff in there.
http://www.crm2day.com/content/t6_librarynews_1.php?news_id=115894
I guess sales force is a mashup of different proprietary technologies. Some labeled, some not.
Are there FOSS solutions? You bet, but most small businesses are too tech stupid to use them. Sales force holds their hand.
Great move, this could be one way twitter could monetize.
Techfilipino
Twitter is turning into quite the notification platform. They have a ton of content and I’m assuming at some point there will be ways to monetize that content.
The problem with Salesforce.com is that is costs so much money per user. Also every user gets charged the same in your organization even if you only wanted to give limited access to certain users. I would use it if cost less.
Salesforce offers different prices per edition and different prices based on which objects you want the user to see/use.
Also, they have special offers for 10 free limited user licenses for the year (at the moment).
Finally, the personal edition is free.
Not quite clear, I really dunn understand how twitter does so many rounds around the world, then one day it will be listed on stock market too…. with a great listing price and then in next few years, it will lead another market crash and then recession too…..I am really skeptical about tweets and their monetizability. Sad and true.
Let’s get one thing straight here, Twitter will NEVER be listed on the stock market.
Keep in mind the content that goes along with twitter. They have tons of valuable content and search.twitter.com has become an incredibly useful service. I would think at some point we’ll see people leverages this content in creative ways and potentially creating opportunities for twitter to monetize. It will definitely be fun to watch and quite a learning experience.
This is hugely important. And it seems like not so earth-shattering at first because it’s only in one company’s SaaS and costs a lot. But once you start thinking of this as not just Salesforth, but media about events, government about people and other countries, etc. you realize it’s like the world goes NSA, with everybody (or at least some wealthy and powerful) being able to pick thoughts out of the air and manipulate others — and monetarization will follow naturally when that ability is put in some people’s hands.
The success of the venture depends on everyone remaining sincere and open on Twitter. Gushing about their day and their experiences with brands. But that will change, in a reflexivity orthogonality. Some companies or interest groups or governments will specialize in posting misleading “twitter active measures” like the old KGB used to do to shape public opinion. Or they will simply sink rivals. Or this phenom will be purchasable as a consulting fee and a campaign, getting the cloud to go your way.
But then, there are privacy and governance issues, and the FTC should investigate this.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=14792
The key here will be indexing valued info versus minutiae (i.e., info overload). How does Cloud computing differ from datawarehousing or datamart? I’m still learning on this one….
Nick
I use salesforce for the personal free version and it has some great features, thanks for the information.
Brian
Thanks for sharing this post.. This is interesting..I think this is a nice move.. I hope it is great.. =) I shall have to take a look at this..
Thanks for posting this, I think this is a huge move for them. Twitter is an incredible platform to keep people updated to what is happening. The ability to integrate it into your site is a great way to share information. We use this at Skedet to keep people updated with the latest information of what is happening on the site. Just another platform to keep people connected. It is amazing how connected we truly are in this day and age.
Awesome, this twitter boom, its huge!
It keeps getting bigger and bigger everyday. It is fun to see all of the apps and services that keep coming out surrounding twitter.
Get Satisfaction already does this for free (for a base account). Plus additional customer centric support.
Nothing new here – just the great SF promoters getting undeserved attention.
Great move by Salesforce and clearly of huge potential, will have to see how well they mine the info. But if anyone is going to do it well, it’ll probably be Salesforce.
Oracle had announced a “Social CRM” some months back, anyone know about that? Didn’t see any specifics/news on that since.